Lucky...

...lucky, me.

On Tuesday at our weekly team gathering (10 mins to share good news, important info etc.) I was presented with this...
...by my staff along with the stern warning "No tears, please".

I manage a large team of clerical support staff (20 directly and another 7 in-directly). Considering I never wanted to be a manager - I was more than happy working on my own collecting & collating statistics - I have ended up with one of the largest teams in our building. Managing such a large number has its headaches and there are times when I would cheerfully bash a few heads together if I could but on the whole they are a great bunch and I would willingly defend them all against whinging from folk who get paid an awful lot more than they do. From time to time they really amaze me by their willingness to take on additional duties and ownership of problems which they proceed to deal with on their own initiative.

On this occasion I was told I had to open the contents of the gift bag...which I did thinking it consisted of some chocolates and Buck's Fizz and a couple of cards for which I thanked them all.........."No, open the little envelope as well!"........to say I was overwhelmed was an understatement - £45 in vouchers for my favourite craft store.
It would appear they did some on-line detective work, knowing that I regularly visit the Craft Village at Barleylands, and came up trumps.

Every year I have given my staff a small gift - usually a scarf, sweets or a diary - this year is no different other than I have a much bigger team to cater for.
I had to keep the wrapping quick and simple otherwise I'd have still been wrapping this time next year LOL...................................